Friday, August 17, 2007

Good Grief

Did you actually read exactly what Czaban had to say after D.C. not being Detroit, New York, Boston, Montreal, and Philly? Or did you just stop right there and launch into your laughably bad counter factual? (That failed to contain any facts)

Czaban properly pointed out that Sports Talk Radio doesn't make the overall Top 10 in ANY market it is in. I actually went and fact checked Czaban for the Top 10 radio markets. The closest is KTCK/KTDK in Dallas-Fort Worth (market #5) and they're ranked 11th Overall in the most recent book.

Czaban is right when he says that Sports Talk Radio is geared towards MALES 18-54. Who else is interested in that stuff? You mean to tell me that Jim Rome appeals to the same audience that Oprah Winfrey does? The overall rankings (which is what Ted was referring to) is EVERYBODY (that's Males, Females, and "Transgenders") over the age of 12.

Have I lost you yet?

Now, according to Ted, WTEM is a failure because they aren't trying to appeal to the widest audience possible. "They just don't get it." But where does Ted put his advertising dollars? Where does Ted buy airtime for his teams? Not on the stations with the largest overall audience in the market but on a station he considers a failure and "just doesn't get it."

But what really makes Ted look foolish is when Ted defends his marketing strategy. Ted brags about how they selectively target their marketing, how they "just don't buy an ad in the (Com)Post and call it a day." If marketing dollars are being selectively targeted, why shouldn't media outlets selectively target their audiences as well to serve the purposes of the people paying the bills? It would seem to me to be a win-win situation. The buyer of airtime for advertising purposes wants to reach a certain audience. A media outlet is looking for ad dollars to run their operations and sees a target audience that they can easily attain. So they tailor their programming to that particular niche the advertisers are paying for. What is the problem with this?

And lets say for the sake of argument that Ted is only concerned about MALES 18-54 (which by all accounts according to him, he isn't). He would still be better off advertising and having his games carried on WHUR, WTOP, WJFK, and WLZL than WTEM.

Look, I know that WHUR, WPGC, and WTOP have little interest in carrying the Washington Capitals or the Washington Redskins for that matter as well. However if Ted or Dan wrote a big enough check to purchase the airtime, it would be a done deal and those teams would be on those stations. (I'm old enough to remember when the Caps were carried by WTOP BTW) However, the Redskins would rather have somebody pay them for the rights to broadcast their games (or just own the whole darn thing themselves which is the current trend) and the Caps would get a much better deal in terms of price from Clear Channel and WTEM than Howard University and WHUR or See-BS Radio and WPGC.

Let me further state for the record if your eyes haven't glossed over yet that I don't blame Ted in the least for going with the cheaper airtime rates. It only makes economic sense for a guy who has been losing $$$$$ on the team since Day One. There was talk last year that he wanted to get the Caps onto WTWP but the airtime costs that Bonneville was asking was too high for him.

I hope you understand now that it strikes me as all kinds of odd that Ted would bash WTEM for targeting a specific radio audience when he himself targets a specific audience himself for marketing purposes. Furthermore, Czaban is right that this is a Redskins town. The evidence of that is overwhelming and it would be suicide for them to move away from Redskins coverage; especially now that there's competition on the airwaves from the team itself.

And let me once again repeat myself, last week's D.C. United-David Beckham game was a one-trick pony. It is very rare to consistently fool people with those things and it speaks more to the pop culture status of David Beckham than it does soccer. Attempting to argue otherwise is foolish.

Finally, I can't begin to explain to you just how foolish you and everybody else who complains about the lack of hockey coverage not only in Washington, D.C but in the US as a whole looks. I understand, respect, and admire your passion for the game of hockey. I agree that it is an outstanding sport and I would love nothing more than to see it grow to be as popular as the NFL, MLB, and NBA. However the reality of the situation is that we are a very small minority here. Complaining that we are being under served and shouldn't be when a lot more people would be under served by less coverage of other sports is just ludicrous. Furthermore, why should they be civil towards you, when you admittedly aren't civil towards them?

Czaban's right, grow the team, grow the market, grow the game, and the coverage of it by the media will follow. Once that happens Czaban and his ilk will mock hockey at their own risk.

But I guess with Ted's last words on this we'll be seeing Caps ads on WHUR , WPGC, WLZL and BET now. Ted will include The Washington Blade in his print advertising realm too. Is there any other "diversity" I've missed?